I was thankful for it, though, because the anger was the only thing strong enough to distract me from watching Lucas. The Reds, the five we’d seen before, had entered the Mess Hall and had made steady passes up and down the rows of silent wooden tables and benches. I wondered if they’d sensed as clearly as the rest of us had, that they were still being watched, even as they’d been clearly elevated to watch us. The PSFs clustered in the corners of the large room, heads bending toward each other as they picked and tore apart the firestarters’ every stiff movement. Part of me wondered if they were more afraid of the Reds than we were.
Lucas passed by our table twice, once behind me, once in front of me. Each time I looked away before he could catch me watching him, taking in every inch of his appearance, searching for my friend in him. Trying to convince myself I wasn’t drowning myself in some kind of desperate delusion. It was like not realizing you were starving until a feast was laid out in front of you.
Older, taller, harder Lucas. Lucas with the dimple in his chin.
Red.
The word ran circles around my mind as we walked over to the Factory, a single word that somehow encompassed a whole dark cloud of thoughts. Red, Red, Red, Red.
I’d thought about it, you know, wondered if the two of them were still alive, if they were in a camp like mine. My first few weeks here, I’d daydream about seeing them from across the Mess Hall or Garden, get hit with the false high of warm recognition despite it all being in my head. I clung to the possibility of it, even as the years marched on. Lucas would be Green, like me. I just wouldn’t see him because they kept the boys and girls separate. Mia would be Blue, which would also explain why I hadn’t seen her. They didn’t let the colors mix unless we were in the Garden. I nursed that little hope for years, shielding it, keeping it close to me like a candle in a rainstorm.
And maybe some part of me remembered that story—Sir Sammy, fair knight, off to find and rescue Prince Lucas from the outcropping of rocks that doubled as a dungeon and fortress depending on the day. I’d sing, and he’d answer with a shout, I’d sing and he’d answer again, over and over until we were tired of the game or were called in for dinner. I always found him where I knew he’d be. It was the searching that was the important part.
Eventually, you grow up and you stop pretending. This place beats every last dream out of you. It clears your head of such stupid things. The truth was simple, not a glossy fairy tale. Lucas was a year older than me and three years older than his sister, Mia, but neither had been hit with IAAN in the time I’d known them. They moved away a few months before I realized I’d already been affected by...the virus, the disease, whatever it was. Their parents had both lost their jobs and headed a ways north to try to find work in a bigger city.
Bedford was a small town made even smaller by the economic crash and the bottomed-out markets that the people on TV couldn’t shut up about. My parents hadn’t let me say good-bye to the Orfeos—they’d never liked their “influence.” They’d whisper that word like it was the devil’s own name. Influence. They didn’t like how I acted when I finally came home, zipping through the rooms, trying to recreate the carefree way we’d run around their house and outside in Greenwood, smacking each other with plastic swords. They didn’t like it when I told them about Mrs. Orfeo giving us snacks, or when I repeated something she had said. It took me a while to understand that when you don’t like someone, nothing they can say or do will ever seem right. Something as harmless as giving a kid a cookie becomes something aggressive, a challenge to their authority.
So I’d watched them drive off from my bedroom window, crying my stupid eyes out, hating everyone and everything. I didn’t stop until I found the bundle of sparklers he’d left for me in the tree fort. The notebook of stories he’d spent three years writing. I kept them there so my parents wouldn’t find them and take them away. I wonder all the time if they’re still there. If Greenwood exists anywhere outside of my head.
My family only got to stay because we lived off the charity of the Church. I don’t know if my parents are in the old house, or if they picked up and moved as far from the memories of their unblessed freak child as they could. I wish I didn’t care.
Lucas and one other Red, a girl with cropped blond hair, served as our escorts. I had to force myself to stare at the back of Ashley’s head to keep from looking at him when he suddenly matched my pace. I swear, he was warm enough that the snow melted before it touched him—that he kept me warm that whole miserable trek through the mud and sleet. But that would have been crazy.
Where had he been sent, if it hadn’t been to Thurmond? Where was Mia? Was she like him, or me, or was she one of the other colors?
The metal Factory doors always sound like they are belching as they are dragged open by the PSFs waiting inside. My hands are useless, cramped and stiff from the cold, but I try squeezing the water from my hair and sweatshirt anyway. We leave a trail of smeared mud and water behind us that the Green cabins on cleanup rotation are going to have to mop up after last meal.
Ice still clouds the skylights—not that there’s any real sun to filter through the clouds of dirt this morning. Winters stretch on forever in this place, dragging out each dark hour until it becomes almost unbearable. There’s one thing I can’t remember: what it feels like to be truly warm.
The building is large enough to swallow several hundred kids whole. The main level is nothing but stretches of work tables and plastic bins. The metal rafters above are usually crowded with figures in black uniforms clutching their large guns, but today there’s only a dozen, maybe less. About that many on the ground, too. A thought begins to solidify at the back of my mind, but I push it away before it can take shape. I need to focus. I need to get through today, and maybe tomorrow will feel easier. It always gets easier as you get used to it.